Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Quick Tutorial on Creating Haks and Erfs

I was asked how to create a hak, so I thought I would share the steps here in a quick tutorial.

We will be using Tanita's NWN2Packer on the Vault. Once you have downloaded and installed the NWN2Packer according to Tanita's Readme, open the program:

1. Click on the green "new" button on the left.2. Click on the blue "import" button on the left.3. Select all the files that you would like to include in your hak (can be dds, mdb, etc.)4. Click on the purple "save as" button and name the file with the .hak extension

And that's it! You can include 2da files in your hak, but you make want to mention it to anyone downloading your hak... it may throw off the 2da files already in someone's computer.

Please note that there are some blueprints that won't work in a hak as far as builders are concerned, this would need to be saved as an .erf file and imported directly into the toolset. This is a concern for builders, not players. :)

Part Two: Associating your new hak pak with a module.

1. Open up your module file in the toolset2. Go to "View - Module Properties" (very top toolbar of toolset)3. There is a spot there to add the hak, listed under properties as "hak paks"4. Click on the "hak paks", a button with three dots "..." shows up. Click on the button and a new window pops up.5. Click on the "add" button and then the button with "..." near the "Filename". Look for your hak from the directory where you saved it.6. Once you have selected the hak, hit the "Okay" button to finalize the hak selection.7. Save your module.

Your hak files might not show up until the next time you load the module...

Update #1: Erf files

Erf files are perfect when you need to import files such as mdb's and blueprints into your module from custom content makers. You could also use them to transfer one of your areas into another module. To export an area, choose "File - Export" and select the files you would like to extract from your module, then the toolset will save them all as an erf file. (It is a good way to keep an extra backup of important files such as dialog).

You can also create an .erf file using the exact same procedure as above for creating a hak using the NWN2Packer, except in step 4 where you are saving as .hak, you would save as .erf instead.

You would skip the steps where you would need to associate the file to your module though. Erfs are imported into a module using a different method. Simply open your module in the toolset, go to "File - Import" and choose your erf file that you have downloaded from the Vault or the one you have created and it will be imported. Once the import is finished, the toolset usually lets you know how many files have been imported to your module.